


Thin Walls

by dyingpoet



Series: Javid one shots [3]
Category: Newsies - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Fluff, M/M, Neighbors, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-24
Updated: 2018-07-24
Packaged: 2019-06-15 11:07:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15411564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dyingpoet/pseuds/dyingpoet
Summary: Jack and his neighbor have never spoken or seen each other, but they share a wall, and one day Jack doesn't hear his neighbor come home





	Thin Walls

Jack Kelly had a very complicated relationship with the guy who lived in the apartment adjacent to his. They’d never spoken or actually seen one another for starters, but by some oddity they managed to have their bedrooms on opposite sides of a very thin shared wall, so they  _ heard  _ quite a bit of one another. 

All he knew about the mystery neighbor was that his last name was Jacobs, and that he usually worked nights. The first bit of info he’d gotten from the mailboxes downstairs, and the second from having to listen to general ‘getting ready’ noises whenever  _ he  _ got back from work around seven or eight at night. Also, the guy snored a little bit, and on his days off he could hear them around midday. 

For whatever reason, he’d never tried walking the ten feet to Jacobs door and maybe getting his first name or a glimpse of his face. Actually, it was pretty much because by the time that idea occurred to him, a month had gone by since Jacobs moved in, and starting a conversation with, “Hey I’ve been listening to you for a month through our wall my name’s Jack,” seemed like the most murdery thing ever. 

So, two more months had gone by and nothing. Not even catching a glance of the back of his head as he got on the elevator or anything, like ships passing in the night, the two of them. 

But tonight something changed. 

Instead of the normal, getting ready sounds that usually started up when he got home from work, there was silence. Logically, he could have assumed that maybe he’d gone out or taken the night off or something, but Jacobs hadn’t done that ever in the three months since he moved in. 

Which was why he was lying awake in his bed at midnight when he had work in the morning, waiting for a guy he’d never seen to come home safe and put his mind to rest. 

It was 12:15 when he heard the bedroom door click open and for some reason he sat up in bed. He was in too deep to not see this through, and started biting at his nails, a nervous habit, in the dark while waiting for some sort of follow-up noise.

If he wasn’t at work he might have the night off, but he’d spent the last few hours wracking his brain for any memory of a night when he’d gone to sleep without hearing  _ something  _ from the other side of the wall to indicate life and he couldn’t. 

Was he becoming too invested in this guy’s personal life? Probably. But it wasn’t everyday that you got a constant in your life and weirdly enough Jacobs had become one of his.

It was 12:30 when he heard it. Softly coming through the wall were very muffled and very choked sobs. Like not just crying, actual  _ sobs _ . 

Pressing his ear to the wall, definitely crossing the line into creepy but he didn’t care, Jack listened for a few seconds and felt a pang in his own chest. There was no way of knowing what happened but it sounded awful and he couldn’t just sit here and do  _ nothing _ . They were neighbors after all. 

Jack took a deep breath and tried to imagine a world where this was not a murdery thing to do. “Jacobs?”

His voice sounded cracked but he’d tried to make it as soft as possible while still able to be heard. The sobs cut off and the sound of ragged breathing followed. 

“Hello?” 

Jacobs voice was choked and slightly higher pitched than Jack had imagined it would be. Nevertheless, he shifted so that he was sitting cross legged facing the wall and cocked his head in the dark. 

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“Who is this?”

Jacobs voice sounded just the slightest bit more composed, and Jack was ht with the sudden realization that maybe Jacobs hadn’t been listening to him at all, and that he’d imagined some weird mutual connection that wasn’t actually existing anywhere besides his head. 

Forehead pressed against the wall, he decided that regardless, he wanted to help. “Your neighbor, Jack Kelly? We’ve never actually talked, or anything, but the wall’s real thin and I didn’t hear you when I got home from work so I stayed up to wait for you and-”

“You stayed up to make sure I got home?” Jacobs asked. If he thought Jack was a psycho killer, he was being awfully polite about it, and didn’t sound freaked out, almost awed a bit. 

“Well, yeah,” Jack said while letting a nervous laugh escape him, “I know that’s probably weird but you usually are up when I go to sleep and I didn’t know if something happened or whatever, and then you did get here and, yeah.”

“Yeah.”

“Are you okay?”

There was a beat of silence and Jack had started staring at the wall as if it could open up and show him what was happening on the other side. 

“I don’t know,” Jacobs said finally. He sounded small. Small and tired. 

Jack nodded to himself. “Okay, do you, uh, is there anything I can do to help?”

Lord knows what had happened to him to cause him to form such strong attachments to complete strangers, especially ones that cried in their apartments at what was now 1 o’clock in the morning, but he did. He wouldn’t be able to sleep until he was sure the guy was okay anyways. 

A sound like a knee bumping into the wall reverberated through the wall and Jack heard Jacobs sniffle a bit. Broke his heart actually.

“You don’t have too, really Jack,” he said softly.

“I don’t  _ have  _ to, I want to.”

A beat of silence followed and the most murdery thing that he ever could have said finally popped out of his mouth. “Do you want to come over here, not talk through a wall?”

Another beat of silence that could have very easily been broken by the dialing of 911 and Jack actually though Jacobs had left the room or something before the voice came through the wall again. 

“Are you going to kill me in your apartment or something?”

Jack really laughed that time. “Nope, not a murderer, too much blood.”

A weak chuckle and Jack found himself smiling. He heard Jacobs bed creak, the wall really was that thin, before getting some slightly rushed ‘getting ready’ sounds before Jacobs spoke up again. 

“Okay, I’m walking over.”

Waiting until he heard the bedroom door click shut, Jack got up and threw on a hoodie and real pants before leaving his own room and unlocking the door. The realization that  _ Jacobs  _ might be a murderer came just has he pulled the door open and saw the man himself standing in front of him. 

Jacobs was  _ cute _ . 

He smiled crookedly at Jack before shuffling forward. “Nice to meet you Jack.”

“Nice to meet you too…”

“Davey.”

“Davey. You can come in.”

Jack stepped back and let Davey, it felt nice to know his first name, walk inside. His eyes were red and a little puffy, and he looked like he hadn’t slept at all, his hair was sticking up and there were the beginning of bags under his eyes. 

Shutting the door, not locking it to keep the whole not-a-murderer thing solid, he walked over to the couch and gestured to the other end. “You can sit if you want.”

Davey bit his lip and nodded before sitting down gingerly. He played with the sleeve of his shift for a few seconds before looking up at Jack. 

“So, you want the whole story?”

“If you wanna tell it.”

Davey’s eyes shifted back down and he looked conflicted for a second before taking a deep breath and moving to sit cross legged and face Jack. His whole body screamed nervous but he also radiated enough desperation that Jack could tell he wanted to say  _ something _ . 

“Okay,” Davey said, “so two things led to all this.” He gestured vaguely at himself. “First, my sister, Sarah, and I have been fighting for a few weeks. She thinks that I’m wasting my life away or something, not getting out enough and that’s why I’m anxious.”

Jack bristled a bit, but bit his tongue, nodding at Davey to keep going.

“So today I broke up with my boyfriend because we weren’t really in sync anymore, he wanted more than I could give him or whatever, and I was okay with that, that was fine. But I told Sarah and she just snapped and said that she couldn’t talk to me until I got my shit together and made an effort and like, stopped texting me or answering my calls completely, which sucked.”

Davey took a deep breath and looked up at Jack briefly. 

“Then, right after all that, my work called and fired me, said it just wasn’t working out anymore, and I just kind of lost it. I wasn’t getting along great with people there and I really  _ wasn’t  _ making an effort, like Sarah said, and I don’t know how I’m going out find another job and I want to prove that I can be okay and just, yeah. That’s it, that’s the story,” Davey finished. He looked on the verge of tears again and was clearly worked up, Jack noticed he’d started clawing at a hangnail on his thumb and looked awfully close to drawing blood.

Without really thinking, he grabbed his hand, felt the tremor going through Davey’s hands. 

He waited to talk until Davey looked up and steadied his breathing. “That sucks, really. Your sister sounds like she cares about you, but she handled it wrong. And your work is shitty for firing you for something that had nothing to do with your work performance, it sounds like.”

Davey nodded. “Yeah, I guess.”

His nails were curling into the back of Jack’s hand and he was hit with the sudden memory of him and Crutchie in a strikingly similar position three years ago; the roles were reversed but the energy was identical.

“If you need a job I work at a coffee place a few blocks from here?” Jack suggested, “It doesn’t pay much but I make rent and stuff, and I’m friends with everyone there and they’re really nice. Job’s easy too.”

There was a beat of silence but this time Jack could actually see what was happening to the guy on the other side of the wall. He was looking down but his eyebrows were knit into a frown, like one of those old statues of the philosophers. 

After a minute or do Davey looked up and Jack tried to decipher the look he was getting. 

“You would do that?”

Jack squeezed his hand and smiled the slightest bit. “Sure. You can sleep on the offer, let me know tomorrow

Davey nodded and Jack caught the first smile he’d seen from the guy in three months. Or twenty minutes, whenever you considered their first official meeting to have taken place. 

Letting go of Jack’s hand, Davey stood up and raked a hand through his hair, looking a hell of a lot better than he had when he first sat down.    
“I’d like that.”

With a nod Jack stood up and walked Davey to the door, who leaned against the jamb and looked down, yeah he was taller than hm by quite a bit, and Jack before smiling again, brighter this time. 

“Thanks Jack.”

“No problem Davey.”

He watched as Davey’s back for a few seconds as he walked back to his apartment before shutting the door and locking it. 

When he got back to bed it was about 1:30 and despite the excitement of meeting and growing significantly closer to his mysterious, and cute and apparently gay, neighbor, tiredness set in almost instantly.

Just as he was about to fall asleep, curled under his comforter and into his too big hoodie, the sound of bed springs creaking came through the wall. A smile appeared on his lips for a half second as he heard Davey settle into his bed. 

“Goodnight Davey,” Jack said, voice thick with sleep. 

A beat of silence.

“Goodnight Jack.”

**Author's Note:**

> Idek what this is but I found a prompt somewhere on tumblr and decided to give it a shot!
> 
> Hope you enjoyed, leave kudos an/or comment if you did!


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